Turkey insist EU objections based on religion

Daily Star, Lebanon
Oct 12 2004

AFP.Turkey’s ambassador to France said in an interview published on
Monday that his country’s would have “no problem” joining the European
Union if it were Christian and that its Muslim heritage is the real
issue behind the current debate.

“The real motive for this reticence, especially in France, is
religion,” Uluc Ozulker told the daily Le Parisien. “If Turkey were
Christian, there would be no problem. But, voila, we are a Muslim
country.”

The ambassador noted that Turkey is a secular state and has been for
more than eight decades since the nation’s founding father, Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk, instituted reforms.

Ozulker spoke as debate rose in France over Turkey’s eventual
membership in the European Union, which currently counts 25 members.

President Jacques Chirac reiterated on Sunday that “it is the French
people who will have the last word,” a reference to his plan for
France to hold a referendum on the subject. That could be a potentially
fatal blow to Turkey’s aspirations since EU members must unanimously
approve any nation’s application for membership.

Chirac supports Turkey’s membership but thinks it will take up to 15
years for it to join.

The French Parliament is to debate the issue before the EU summit
Dec. 17 when leaders are to finalize an initial approval of membership
talks.

Ozulker said that Europe “is not a Christian enclave” and that
Turkey’s joining the EU “will not denature Europe” despite its some
70 million-strong population.

“We share the same democratic values as the 25,” he said, adding that
Turkey is already part of the customs union.

Asked if Turkey would recognize the Armenian genocide, the ambassador
said that it has yet to be proven.

“It’s up to international and impartial historians to meet and decide,”
Ozulker said. “We will accept the results of their work.”

Meanwhile, Germany’s conservative opposition kept up efforts to keep
Turkey out of the European Union, proposing to start a signature
campaign against opening the way to full EU membership.

Jerusalem’s disgrace

Ha’aretz
Oct 12 2004

The police interrogation of Armenian Archbishop Nourhan Manougian,
who allegedly slapped yeshiva student Zvi Rosenthal after Rosenthal
spat at Manougian and at a crucifix during the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross procession in the Old City this week, reveals a little bit of the
increasingly wild Jewish-nationalist-religious atmosphere in Jerusalem.

It is the bad luck of the Armenians, a peaceful and modest community
in the city, that its churches and other institutions, including
their ancient cemetery, is on the way to the Jewish Quarter in the
Old City. As a result, the priests of the community suffer from
the unrestrained behavior of yeshiva students who pass through the
Armenian Quarter, sometimes deliberately, to do harm and cause strife.

This is not the first time the Armenians have fallen victim to such
bullying. The police does not make an effort to prevent the disgraceful
phenomenon of spitting at priests – Armenians and others – and at
the crosses they carry.

The Interior Ministry has done nothing in response to appeals by
the heads of the church regarding their plight. Thus the state is
neglecting its duty to protect the legitimate representatives of a
peace-loving community.

That negligence, just like the bullying, is a disgrace to the state
of the Jewish people, which was persecuted through the generations
because of its religion and customs.

Moreover, it is a disgrace for Jerusalem. Ever since the city was
“reunited,” the city burghers and ministers in charge of it have
claimed the capital of Israel would protect the dignity and stature
of the three monotheistic religions and that their rights would be
honored, including the right to freedom of movement.

And now, while the police and Shin Bet focus on preparations for
the threat of impassioned assaults on Muslims on the Temple Mount,
it turns out that for some time the Christians in Jerusalem have been
suffering from various and sundry provocations by wild young people.
The provocations – from spitting near or at crosses to throwing trash
on the doorsteps of Christian edifices on Mt. Zion – have become an
ugly routine in recent years, fitting right in with the increasingly
extremist political atmosphere.

Jerusalem is a city holy to the three monotheistic religions. The
state of Israel and the Jerusalem municipality are responsible
for all the institutions and personages representing those three
religions. The churches, monasteries, schools and gardens in within
the municipal jurisdiction not only have the right to protection or
police escorts during their holidays, but also the sense of belonging
and full freedom of activity.

It is intolerable that Christian citizens of Jerusalem suffer from
the shameful spitting at or near a crucifix. Similar behavior toward
Jews anywhere in the world would immediately prompt vehement responses.

The mayor, the government and the security services must therefore make
clear to the heads of all the religious communities that the protection
of their safety is the top-ranking priority for them. At the same time,
they must take firm action against those enflamed youths looking for
opportunities to sabotage the complex fabric of life in Jerusalem.

Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
By Amiram Barkat

Ha’aretz
Oct 12 2004

A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended
a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul quarter.
When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came
and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down,
the passerby spat in his face.

The clergyman prefered not to lodge a complaint with the police and
told an acquaintance that he was used to being spat at by Jews. Many
Jerusalem clergy have been subjected to abuse of this kind. For the
most part, they ignore it but sometimes they cannot.

On Sunday, a fracas developed when a yeshiva student spat at the
cross being carried by the Armenian Archbishop during a procession
near the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. The archbishop’s
17th-century cross was broken during the brawl and he slapped the
yeshiva student.

Both were questioned by police and the yeshiva student will be
brought to trial. The Jerusalem District Court has meanwhile banned
the student from approaching the Old City for 75 days.

But the Armenians are far from satisfied by the police action and say
this sort of thing has been going on for years. Archbishop Nourhan
Manougian says he expects the education minister to say something.

“When there is an attack against Jews anywhere in the world, the
Israeli government is incensed, so why when our religion and pride
are hurt, don’t they take harsher measures?” he asks.

According to Daniel Rossing, former adviser to the Religious Affairs
Ministry on Christian affairs and director of a Jerusalem center for
Christian-Jewish dialogue, there has been an increase in the number
of such incidents recently, “as part of a general atmosphere of lack
of tolerance in the country.”

Rossing says there are certain common characeristics from the point
of view of time and location to the incidents. He points to the fact
that there are more incidents in areas where Jews and Christians
mingle, such as the Jewish and Armenian quarters of the Old City and
the Jaffa Gate.

There are an increased number at certain times of year, such as
during the Purim holiday.”I know Christians who lock themselves
indoors during the entire Purim holiday,” he says.

Former adviser to the mayor on Christian affairs, Shmuel Evyatar,
describes the situation as “a huge disgrace.” He says most of the
instigators are yeshiva students studying in the Old City who view
the Christian religion with disdain.

“I’m sure the phenomenon would end as soon as rabbis and well-known
educators denounce it. In practice, rabbis of yeshivas ignore or even
encourage it,” he says.

Evyatar says he himself was spat at while walking with a Serbian
bishop in the Jewish quarter, near his home. “A group of yeshiva
students spat at us and their teacher just stood by and watched.”

Jerusalem municipal officials said they are aware of the problem but
it has to be dealt with by the police. Shmuel Ben-Ruby, the police
spokesman, said they had only two complaints from Christians in the
past two years. He said that, in both cases, the culprits were caught
and punished.

He said the police deploy an inordinately high number of patrols and
special technology in the Old City and its surroundings in an attempt
to keep order.

Turkey’s EU bid haunted by Armenian ghosts
Daily Editorial

The Tufts Daily, MA
Oct 12 2004

Turkey’s desire to join the EU was boosted last week, when the European
Commission recommended opening membership talks with the country. EU
membership promises increased foreign investment and expanded trade
within Europe for Turkey.

The EU must hold Turkey to strict human rights standards, as Dr.
Glendale-Hilmar Kaiser’s speech on the Armenian genocide reminded
students. The Turkish government continues to refuse to recognize
that there was a state-sponsored genocide against the Armenians at
the beginning of the 20th century.

Additionally, Turkey has not won praises for the treatment of its
Kurdish minority. It has recently been easing its restrictions on the
group – it is no longer illegal to broadcast the Kurdish language on
television, and some Kurdish leaders are able to call for more rights
without being thrown in jail. But there is still a way to go.

Fears have recently risen that Turkey may move in the wrong
direction. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted to re-criminalize
adultery, which drew enough European criticism to drop the efforts
in the 23rd hour. The country has been condemned for a poor record
on religious freedom and women’s rights. Turkey will have to meet
stiff economic and legal criteria to gain admission to the EU.

The prospect of joining the EU will be an impetus for Turkey to
modernize both its economy and legal system. Entrance into Europe’s
elite club is a popular goal with the Turkish population, if the
press is anything to go by, and politicians can find support to pass
the necessary measures.

Adding Turkey would reflect well on the EU, if only because it
will show that the EU is not a Christian organization. Millions of
Muslims already live within the EU, but Turkey would be the first
majority-Muslim nation to join the Union. It is quite a secular nation,
but it would be a step towards proving that liberal democracy and
Islamic cultures can mix.

Critics of Turkey’s admission cite fears that large numbers of poor
Turks will flood into Western Europe. The free movement of people,
however, is a necessary tenant of the EU to allow for complete
economic integration. However, there were similar fears concerning
the 10 Eastern European countries that joined this past May. Western
Europe was not swamped with economic migrants from Eastern Europe,
nor were they inundated with those from Turkey.

Others fear the economic ramifications of inviting in a poor
country like Turkey, where nearly a third of the population works in
agriculture. The point of the EU is to benefit all of the countries
that join, not just rich ones like France and Germany. Membership
turned Ireland and Spain into strong economies, and will hopefully
do the same to new member countries. Turkey’s large population and
resources show that there is potential for growth.

The biggest obstacle that could block Turkey’s EU bid is its human
rights record. It needs to continue easing up on the Kurds and
expanding women’s rights. It also needs to admit its involvement
with the Armenian genocide once and for all. If Turkey is to spend
its future in the EU, it needs to come clean about its past.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Versatile actress takes to challenge
BILL BRIOUX, SUN MEDIA

Edmonton Sun, Canada
Oct 12 2004

TORONTO — Claudia Ferri is far more worldly than her Ciao Bella
character, Elena. And stylish, too, sporting exotic rings and jewelry
with cool stories to match. She is Elena on the other side. So much
so, that it was painful to watch her character in the early episodes,
she told the Sun over lunch last week.

“There will be a tendency for Canadians who haven’t been exposed to
Italians or Italian families in their daily context to say, ‘Aw, c’mon,
she’s being pushed around too much. How come she doesn’t rebel? This
is ridiculous.’

“It was even hard for me,” says Ferri, who landed the lead after
impressing the same producers when she played feisty Anna in Mambo
Italiano. “That was the old me,” she says of Elena. “I hated seeing
myself like that.”

Ferri loves the way Ciao Bella explores the universal theme of becoming
an individual. That it is based on a tight-knit Italian family just
adds oregano to the mix.

“It’s all about responsibility and duty and a certain code,”
she says. “I can very much relate to her and her need to push the
boundaries and find her own individuality.”

While there are parallels to hers and Elena’s upbringing, there are
important differences, too.

Ferri is familiar with Montreal’s Little Italy (especially after Ciao
Bella’s six-month shoot), but she grew up in rural Quebec where she
faced a great deal of intolerance due to her multi-ethnic background
(Italian father, French-Canadian mother, Armenian and native-Canadian
roots).

The exotic mix is paying dividends as an actress. Ferri and the rest
of the cast shot Ciao Bella in two versions, French and English.
Besides Italian, she can also get by in Spanish.

Her challenging early years also made her stronger, and not just in
resolve. Farm work gave her strong muscles, Ferri boasts, telling an
eye-opening tale about fending off a real-life attacker.

Unlike Elena, Ferri has lived life and tasted both bitter and sweet.
She also rebelled, and early. She left home at 16 and had her own
family (three children. She brought photos).

Her relationships with parents and siblings continue to be both rocky
and adventurous.

So, yes, she relates to the colourful clan in Ciao Bella. “It is a
comedy and we all have to be able to laugh at ourselves,” she says.

Los Angeles Daily News, CA
Oct 12 2004

Boxer killed in mob dispute

Police seek man who fired shots in park
By Jason Kandel,
Staff Writer

A professional boxer who aspired to be the Armenian “Rocky” was
fatally shot by other members of an organized crime ring in a dispute
over a credit-card scheme, officials said Monday.
Arsen Aivazian, 30, of North Hollywood was killed about 9 p.m.
Saturday at Valley Plaza Park, where members of a Russian-Armenian
organized crime syndicate had gathered to settle a dispute over a
fraud ring, authorities said.

“It was an argument over criminal activities within the group,” LAPD
Detective Mike Coffey said. “Credit card, gas schemes. That’s what it
was over.”

Coffey said the men argued loudly in Armenian before Aivazian — a
professional welterweight — threw a punch at one of them. That man
then pulled a gun and shot Aivazian three times in the chest before
the group fled in at least three vehicles.

On Sunday, police located one of the getaway vehicles, which had been
ditched in the 6400 block of Farmdale Avenue. The unidentified owner
was questioned and released.

Aivazian’s family members in Fort Worth, Texas, said they were
devastated by the news. They had nicknamed Aivazian “Rocky” because
of his love for boxing.

“This is a big loss,” said his brother, Andranik Aivazian, 31, who
was contacted by phone. “He was my little brother. We’ve never been
apart.”

Aivazian emigrated with his family from Yerevan, Armenia, to
Czechoslovakia, then to the United States. They settled in Fort
Worth, where Aivazian got his professional boxing license in 1997.

He trained with two-time world champion bantamweight boxer Paulie
Ayala and Fort Worth trainer Vincent Reyes. Locally, he trained at
the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood.

“He always put on a good fight,” Reyes said. “He looked just like
Rocky. He had the physique and everything. He had his sense of
taste.”

While he was boxing he always had side jobs — waiting tables,
selling phone books, washing cars, “doing whatever he could to get
his hands on money,” Reyes said. But he added, “I can’t see him in
any organized crime or anything.”

Turkey May Participate In Peace Talks

AssA-Irada 12/10/2004 12:05

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Oct 12 2004

Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian told a recent news conference
in Yerevan that there may be a need for Turkey’s involvement in
the ensuing stages of the talks over the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement.

Oskanian was responding to the statement by the Russian co-chair of
the OSCE Minsk Group Yutri Merzlyakov. Oskanian said, however, said
that Armenia opposes Turkey’s participation in the current stage of
the negotiations.

Russian co-chair Merzlyakov recently said that the participation of
Turkey and the Armenian community of Nagorno Karabakh in the peace
talks is possible.

Lawrence Journal World, KS
Oct 12 2004

Technology bridges international classes
New program links KU students with worldly peers

By Terry Rombeck, Journal-World

Lee Grignon was trying to write a collaborative essay examining
theories of democracy.

But all his partner on the project wanted to talk about was President
Bush.

“I think he is not smart enough,” said the partner, Zumrud
Mammadzade.

The conversation might not seem out of the ordinary for a Kansas
University class, considering the U.S. presidential election is less
than a month away.

What made the exchange unusual was the geography.

Grignon was in a Wescoe Hall classroom, and Mammadzade was in a
classroom at Western University in Bacu, Azerbaijan.

The students are part of a State Department-sponsored pilot program
that connects U.S. college students with students at universities
around the world using video phones and Internet chat rooms. KU is
one of 12 U.S. universities participating.

“We need to build global understanding, whether it’s for exercising
U.S. foreign policy interests or simply building peace and prosperity
in the world,” said Erik Herron, assistant professor of political
science who is teaching the KU class. “I think that’s why the State
Department is so interested in the program. It’s not designed to help
people like Americans, it’s designed for world citizens to understand
the U.S.”

Tech troubles

Dubbed the Virtual Classroom Project, the program debuted last year
at East Carolina University.

At KU, 15 students in Herron’s introduction to comparative politics
honors class spent a month working with students at Western
University and recently switched to working with students at Osh
State University in Kyrgyzstan. They’ll also collaborate with
students at Mongolian National University.

At 8 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Herron dials into a
computer network that brings up a video connection to classrooms in
the other countries, including Kyrgyzstan where it is 7 p.m. What
appears looks something like the video phone footage sent back by
news correspondents in Iraq.

Students and professors take turns talking in slow, deliberate
speech. Each side has a red flag to wave if it can’t understand the
audio.

Classes are divided between a lecture by Herron and student
discussions, both with the video connection and in chat rooms.

“Unfortunately, because of the technology, it’s difficult to engage
in full dialogue,” Herron said. “Despite all the complications and
problems, it’s worth it.”

Political talk

That’s because students are being introduced to cultures few knew
much — if anything — about.

“I didn’t know Azerbaijan even existed before this class,” said
Grignon, a Brookfield, Wis., freshman.

Meanwhile, students in Azerbaijan have been following developments in
the United States closely.

“A great amount of students oppose the Iraq policy of George Bush but
significantly support George Bush on his struggle against terrorism,”
said Elvin Majidov, one of the Western University students. “That’s
because we have seen what the terror is.”

Azerbaijan has been in a sometimes-bloody conflict with Armenia over
the Nagorno-Karabakh territory for 15 years.

“It was a pity to learn my partner (in the KU class) didn’t support
the Azeri side in Karabakh conflict,” said Nana Atakishiyeva, another
Western University student. “I cannot say that he supported the
Armenian side — he had a neutral position.”

In fact, KU student Nina Mosallaei said, none of the KU students was
familiar with the conflict.

“Apparently they’ve been fighting for many years,” said Mosallaei, an
Overland Park sophomore. “I had no idea.”

‘Direct experience’

Mosallaei said she hoped the class would be a model for more
international courses.

“I think it’s a really good experience to have, especially nowadays,”
she said. “We’re always in our little bubbles, and we think we’re
always right. I think it’s a fantastic idea, to talk to people around
the world. If we did more of that, maybe we wouldn’t fight as much
and we’d get along better.”

Herron, the KU professor, said he planned to teach the course again
next fall.

Adam Meier, a spokesman for the State Department, said the government
planned to add more universities to the program.

“These are the future leaders in their countries,” Meier said of the
international participants. “Time and time again, we hear of people
rising to power who have had a direct experience that led to a better
understanding of American cultures.

“I think everyone would agree it’s in our best interest to have
(foreign) leaders with a better understanding of who we are, rather
than potentially relying on skewed media in other parts of the world.
You’d rather have that direct experience.”

Speaker describes children’s fate during the Armenian genocide
By Patrick Gordon, Daily Editorial Board

The Tufts Daily, MA
Oct 12 2004

Glendale – Dr. Hilmar Kaiser explored a new facet of the disputed
Armenian genocide in a lecture last Thursday that discussed how young
Armenian children were able to escape death, though usually at the
expense of parting with their parents.

“Armenian children had a strong chance of survival” during the period
of the starvation, abuse and loss of more than a million Armenians
that took place in the early 20th century, said Kaiser, a German
scholar of the genocide.

Kaiser described the genocide’s devastating nature on Turkey’s wider
Armenian population using authentic and often graphic photos of
the genocide.

Armenian girls and boys younger than age 13 were often spared,
however, because the Turkish government felt it was “possible for
Armenian children to be assimilated into Turkish culture,” Kaiser said.

Marriage into a Turkish family would save girls, especially younger
girls, from a more disastrous fate in the genocide’s death marches
across the Anatolia region.

“A saving grace for Armenian girls is the Turkish social structure,”
Kaiser said. “An Armenian woman who married a Turkish man automatically
became Turkish by association.”

The Turkish government also provided funds specifically to “feed
the Armenian children,” because they were also useful laborers,
Kaiser said.

For this reason, there also “was a clear pattern for survival of boys”
because they were needed to “work as shepherds, camel herders and
farmhands,” Kaiser said.

Armenian children were spared because of their importance in Turkey’s
textile industry as well. Their small hands could reach into the
spokes of the spinning machines to retrieve bits of unprocessed
cotton, making them “essential to the industry. Without them, the
textile industry surely would have collapsed,” Kaiser said.

But hundreds of thousands of older Armenians were removed from their
villages and provinces within Turkish territories, supposedly to be
“relocated” to distant and isolated pockets of the empire such as Azur.

Instead, the Armenians were subject to a “systematic exposure to
starvation, dehydration and contagious diseases,” Kaiser said.

The Turkish government still denies to this day that there was a
genocide, claiming that Armenian populations were simply removed from a
“war zones.”

But some Armenian children, though they were able to avoid the death
marches and forced relocations, were exposed to another extreme
hardship: prostitution.

Kaiser said that “there was rampant child prostitution and rape along
Turkey’s railroads during this period. Children eight years old and
even younger were prostituted in these regions.”

The origins of the genocide lie partly in the surging fear within
Ottoman Turkey that its Armenian population had sided with the Russian
forces during World War I.

The immediate genocidal period lasted from about April 1915 until
Sept. 1916, according to Kaiser. It began with the executions of
hundreds of Armenian leaders who had been fooled into gathering
in Istanbul.

Although Kaiser said that conflicting data and statistics make it
difficult to determine precisely how many Armenians were murdered
during the genocide, “the Armenian population could have suffered
about 1.5 million losses.”

Kaiser defined a “loss” not simply as a death, but rather as a
functioning member of the Armenian community who, for whatever reason,
could no longer rejoin it after the genocide.

“How many people were ravaged by disease and made infertile? How
many were reduced to insanity by the death marches? How many Armenian
women were married into Turkish families?” Kaiser said.

And though Kaiser stressed that the genocide was rapidly planned and
carried out by the Turkish government, he said that “there was no
long-term conspiracy to kill Armenians.”

Rather, “it occurred when the Turks had every reason to believe that
their last hour had come [as a result of World War I].”

“[It was more] the Turks saying ‘we’ll take care of the Armenians
before we go down ourselves,'” Kaiser said.

Kaiser was invited to speak by the Tufts Armenian Club. About 30 people
attended the discussion, which took place Thursday night in Eaton Hall.

PARLIAMENT APPROVES BILL ON ELECTION CODE CHANGES IN THE FIRST READING

ArmenPress
Oct 11 2004

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS: By a vote of 95 and 2 votes against
the Armenian parliament approved today in the first reading a bill
on making changes to the Election Law, however, the lawmakers failed
to reach agreement on how the National Assembly should be elected
in the future. Under the existing law, 75 members of the National
Assembly are chosen on the party list basis, while the remaining 56
parliament seats are contested in single-mandate constituencies. The
lawmakers agreed today to overcome the moot point before putting the
bill on the second reading.

The bill was developed by the three members of the ruling
coalition. According to parliament leadership, some 44 changes were
incorporated in it. The bill is said to have improved the procedure
of compiling voter lists, making it transparent and clear, apart from
improving the process of vote calculation and tabulation and giving
more authorities to proxies and observers.

The Republican Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and
Orinats Yerkir, the three parliamentary parties, making the majority,
are advocating for more seats contested under the proportional
representation system, saying it would help resist vote manipulation,
while the People’s Deputy, a group of 17 independent lawmakers,
elected in the constituencies, opposes any increase in the number of
party list seats.

The opposition minority did not take part in the voting today
continuing its already eight-month long boycott of the parliament’s
work.